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<title>There Is No Red Death At This Masque by Dante8</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27370492">There Is No Red Death At This Masque</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dante8/pseuds/Dante8'>Dante8</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Masque of the Red Death - Edgar Allan Poe</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 17:14:15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>399</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27370492</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dante8/pseuds/Dante8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A short little COVID-inspired satire about denial of disease, featuring Prince Prospero denying that the Red Death is at his masquerade ball, although it clearly is.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

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<a name="section0001"><h2>There Is No Red Death At This Masque</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Look, the point of this masquerade ball is to forget about the plague of the Red Death, so I don’t know why you keep bringing it up. Of course the clock keeps chiming the hour – that’s what clocks do, you know. There’s no ominous foreshadowing about it. The fact that everyone stops dancing or talking or playing music when it happens only shows how paranoid you’ve all become. Why do I stop also? Because I feel irresistibly compelled to by a dread and implacable force of nature – but it’s probably just the wind.</p><p>I admit the way the firelight falls upon the black tapestries through the blood-tinted windows in the seventh room is a bit much, but there’s really no need to call it “ghastly in the extreme.” And no, I do not think that room is symbolic of the death that inevitably awaits us all. The fact that most of the guests are avoiding it like, um, a thing people really enjoy avoiding only shows they don’t appreciate the color scheme. (That’s why I’m out here too. In retrospect, those tapestries really do clash with the windowpanes, which is my one and only regret about this party.)</p><p>Could you hand me another bottle of wine, please? Thank you. As I was saying, I’ve been cooped up for months now, and frankly I think I deserve a little get-together. We all do! Just because half the population has died is no reason to stop enjoying a little entertainment. It may be a touch awkward that the abbey doors have been welded shut against the potentially contagious peasants, but just think of it as part of the atmosphere that in no way shows the kind of selfish pride that always goes before a fall in classic tragedies.</p><p>Whether or not all this plague talk is exaggerated (which it is) at the end of the day we’re all still part of the upper class, remember? Ignoring the brutal deaths of our lessers is our birthright, and could never come back to haunt us! Say, speaking of things that are definitely not haunting us, has that baleful gentleman in the shroud splattered with, er, tomato juice been there this entire time? Well, with fashion sense like that he’s not getting invited to my next soirée, I can assure you. In fact, I believe I’ll have a word with him now. Excuse me…</p>
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